It may be a bitter disappointment which falls upon a young life when love has not been true, or when character has proved unworthy, turning the fair blossoms of hope to dead leaves under the feet.

There are lives that bear the pain and carry the hidden memorials of such a grief through long years, making them sad at heart even when walking in sweetest sunshine.
Or it may be the failure of some other hope, as when one has followed a bright dream of ambition for days and years, finding it only a dream.
Or it may be the keener, more bitter grief which comes to one when a friend--a child, a brother or sister, a husband or wife--does badly.
In such a case even the divine comfort cannot heal the heart's hurt; love cannot but suffer, and there is no hand that can lessen the pang.
The anguish which love endures for others' sins is among the saddest of earth's sorrows.
There are griefs that hang no crape on the door-bell, that wear no black garments, that close no shutters, that drop no tears which men can see, that can get no sympathy save that of the blessed Christ and perhaps of a closest human brother, and must wear smiles before men and go on with life's work as if all were gladness within the heart.

If we knew the inner life of many of the people we meet, we would be very gentle with them and would excuse the things in them that seem strange or eccentric to us.

They are carrying burdens of secret grief.

We do not begin to know the sorrows of our brothers.
There is no need to try to solve that old, yet always new, question of human hearts, "Why does God permit so much suffering in his children ?" It is idle to ask this question, and all efforts at answering it are not only vain, but they are even irreverent.